The light comes in

Throwing myself to the wolves.
Over the cliff.
Knowing the jump won’t be fatal.
The bones will not hold. The rocks will tear and crush and break.
But will not kill. And yet I let myself fall.

My heart has pounded us this way, right to the edge. Chasing after something.
Some days it feels so separate from me. What do you see that I don’t?
What have you heard that I missed?

The landfill of my human garbage. I see it there over the cliff edge.
It will smother, but not suffocate. My breath will catch, but continue.

“Anyone whose goal is something higher must expect some day to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.” -Milan Kundera

You grit your teeth and bite your cheek. Nothing has prepared you for this.
The ache you feel, the ache of the unprepared. All those years you thought you were training, practicing–useless.
That voice you strained to hear–you realize now, too late, what it was saying…

And I thought it would be something different. I’ve been practicing to feel the wrong thing. This music cannot be read, cannot be played. This map goes to nowhere. The one I drew. Nonsense. Impossible to map. So carefully I stepped. You’ve done everything wrong.

Not even a bread trail eaten by birds, but sugar swarmed by ants.

I’m breakable. I’m cracking. I’ve splintered. I have to say goodbye to that likeness in the mirror. Somehow you knew all along. It’s okay.